Rally to support Apple overwhelmed by Laquan McDonald protesters

Laquan McDonald protesters interrupt Apple store rally

As Apple supporters convened at the Apple Store on North Michigan Avenue for a rally, Laquan McDonald protesters joined the throng and interrupted the rally with a protest of their own. Feb. 23, 2016. (WGN-TV)

As Apple supporters convened at the Apple Store on North Michigan Avenue for a rally, Laquan McDonald protesters joined the throng and interrupted the rally with a protest of their own. Feb. 23, 2016. (WGN-TV)

A rally in support of Apple's decision to fight a government request to create software that they say would circumvent security safeguards was hijacked Tuesday by protesters calling for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez after the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

The Apple Store on North Michigan Avenue was among nearly 50 locations worldwide where Fight for the Future, an organization that advocates for privacy for Internet users and opposes Web censorship, planned rallies Tuesday.

A small group assembled for that rally late Tuesday afternoon proved unequal to a more vocal group of protesters, who had marched from the Thompson Center in the Loop to North Michigan Avenue. That group saw the media assembled to cover the Apple rally and quickly commandeered the spotlight.

Flag burning

Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune

A protester holds a burning American flag during a Feb. 23, 2016, demonstration on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

A protester holds a burning American flag during a Feb. 23, 2016, demonstration on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

The protesters started chants against Emanuel and Alvarez, then several in the crowd got into a shoving match with police officers. Some of the demonstrators were knocked into the planter boxes that line Michigan Avenue.

A small cluster of protesters huddled at Michigan Avenue and Huron Street, where they burned a small American flag and shouted profanities before continuing to march north.

After the skirmish, only two or three Fight for Future protesters remained, including Jon Monroe, who said he drove downtown from Libertyville to participate in the rally. He said the others were "scared off."

Laquan McDonald protesters

Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune

A demonstrator lies on the ground in front of the Apple Store during a protest on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on Feb. 23, 2016.

A demonstrator lies on the ground in front of the Apple Store during a protest on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on Feb. 23, 2016.

(Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

The Apple demonstration was set up to mark a week since a judge's order that Apple help the FBI unlock the cellphone of a gunman in the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that claimed 14 lives and left 22 wounded.

Organizers had encouraged protesters to turn their phones and tablets into protest signs and carry 10-foot iPhone-shaped banners reading "Don't Break Our Phones" to show opposition against the court order compelling Apple to help the FBI hack into Syed Rizwan Farook's work-issued iPhone.

"We're at a turning point, a fork in the road for if the government will have the precedent to have access to all of our private information in our phones," Monroe said.

Protesters are preparing to assemble in more than 30 cities to lash out at the FBI for obtaining a court order that requires Apple to make it easier to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by a gunman in December's mass murders in California.

The protests organized by the Internet rights group Fight...

(Tribune news services)

"It's just like after 9/11," said Kyle McDaniel, who also came out for the Apple rally. "They said, 'We need to be able to spy on all of our citizens, we need all of their records. And companies … were like, 'OK,'"

"It's bad that kind of thing happened, but it's worse that they're using it as a scapegoat for them to exacerbate the losing of our privacy," McDaniel said.

Apple objected to the court order and posted on its website that it believes there are "dangerous" implications to creating a new operating system for the use of the government and that could set a precedent.

Although it is possible to create a new operating system, Apple said the only way to make sure the tool isn't abused is to never create it.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a letter last week that the tech company provided phone data to authorities and made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI.

"We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create," he said.

In a letter Sunday, FBI Director James Comey said: "We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist's passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That's it. We don't want to break anyone's encryption or set a master key loose on the land."

A version of this article appeared in print on February 24, 2016, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Laquan McDonald protest upstages pro-Apple rally - Group lauds firm for resisting FBI, then loses spotlight" —
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